Theatre in Review: Into the Woods (St. James Theatre) To understand why this Into the Woods is so enchanting, you must first understand what it is not: Do not expect elaborate designs, magical special effects, or fancy directorial concepts. Unlike its many New York revivals -- on Broadway in 2002, in Central Park in 2012, and at Roundabout in 2015 -- this is a glorified concert staging, imported from Encores! at City Center. Lear deBessonet's direction is swift, businesslike, and highly presentational, treating the action as a series of musical turns. Everything is done simply and without fuss. And yet this minimalist approach results in the funniest, most ravishingly sung, and heartbreaking account of the James Lapine -- Stephen Sondheim musical since the legendary 1987 original. Maybe the director has some magic beans up her sleeves. (Such legumes, you will recall, are the heart of Lapine's book, in which a childless baker and his wife, trying to appease the aggrieved witch who has made then infertile, embark on a kind of scavenger hunt, tangling with various fairytale characters.) Or maybe it's because, as if prove the maxim that 90% of direction is casting, she has assembled her actors with such acuity, right down to the understudies (some of whom you are certain to see, for reasons I don't need to mention). If you need additional proof regarding the depth of Broadway's talent bench, this will do the trick. The cast breaks down into three categories. The familiar faces are led by Patina Miller as the Witch, the plot's catalyst and center of gravity. Bernadette Peters, who created the role, was a mad camp with a slow-to-appear moral authority. Vanessa Williams was an oracle of doom, her eyes scanning the horizon for fresh disasters. Miller is a witch of many parts, terrifying as the curse-wielding hag of Act I and, later -- transformed into a fashion plate stripped of her powers -- a furious Cassandra, warning anyone who will listen that the worst is yet to come. Her voice -- a smoky, vibrating lower register matched with clarion top notes -- turns her eleven o'clock number "The Last Midnight" into a sweeping denunciation of humankind's fatal foolishness. In private moments, however, she reveals a tender, self-doubting soul. Trying to hold onto her resentful daughter, Rapunzel, she infuses the ballad "Stay with Me," with sadness and yearning. ("Who out there could love you more than I?/What out there that I cannot supply?") It takes a formidable performer to blend so many emotional colors into a coherent palette, but Miller makes it look easy. Fortunately, she is surrounded by a company of equals. Phillipa Soo brings her natural intelligence and creamy vocals to Cinderella, who, arriving at that fabled ball, realizes that her dreams are so much tinsel. ("He's a very nice prince/He's a prince who prepares," she sings, unconvincingly, trying to summon a rapture she doesn't feel.) She also executes some nifty pratfalls while fleeing her romantic fate. As Cinderella's Prince and his brother (who is stuck on Rapunzel), Gavin Creel and Joshua Henry are an ideal pair of cardboard swains, striking carefully coordinated poses while baring their aching hearts in the comic duet "Agony." Henry gets to exercise a previously unseen gift for farce; Creel doubles as Red Ridinghood's Wolf, wielding a saltshaker and feasting on the lubricious lyrics of "Hello, Little Girl." ("There's no possible way/To describe what you feel/When you're talking to your meal.") Indeed, so prodigal is deBessonet's affection for actors that she includes David Patrick Kelly as the narrator and the curveball-throwing Mysterious Man; Nancy Opel, falsely smiling through jealous tears as Cinderella's Stepmother; and the great Annie Golden, pulling off a hat trick as Cinderella's spectral mother, Red Ridinghood's cranky granny, and the booming voice of the Giant, who, seeking revenge for her husband's death, rains down death and destruction on all. Not that there is a shortage of striking new faces. As songwriter and sometime star of Waitress, Sara Bareilles isn't exactly a tyro, but Into the Woods represents a challenge of a different order. As the Baker's Wife, she shows a knack for casual, throwaway humor, whether suavely fleecing Jack (of beanstalk fame) of his most prized possession or sidling up to Cinderella, the better to steal one of her slippers; equally delectable is her sheer confusion when Cinderella's Prince, bored and lost, turns his attentions toward her. ("This is ridiculous. What am I doing here? I'm in the wrong story!") She deftly navigates Sondheim's lyrics, whether seizing on a purposely awful pun ("If the end is right, it justifies the beans!") or working out the either/or equivocations in "Moments in the Woods." Bareilles isn't as polished an actress as Joanna Gleason, who created the role, but her singing is, if anything, even better, and she gives the Baker's Wife a delightful spontaneity all her own. Bagging many of the evening's biggest laughs is Broadway debutante Julia Lester, whose Little Red Ridinghood has a healthy appetite for pastries, a cheery smile that narrows into a lethal grimace, and a deadpan delivery that makes short work of foolishness -- not to mention a deft switchblade technique. Other impressive first-timers include Alysia Velez, offering lovely vocals as Rapunzel, and Kennedy Kanagawa, deftly manipulating Milky White, Jack's beloved cow -- one of the many inventive puppet designs contributed by James Ortiz. You can bet that any large-cast show these days will have understudies at any given performance. On the night I attended, Jason Forbach, stepping in for Brian d'Arcy James, was a most persuasive Baker, haplessly insisting that everything was under control; partnering charmingly with Bareilles on the upbeat, can-do "It Takes Two;" and convincingly evolving into the sadder-but-wiser figure of Act II. The Baker has the evening's toughest assignment, delivering the rueful ballad "No More" right after Miller rattles the rafters with "The Last Midnight," but Forbach's thoughtful, understated reading cast a powerfully melancholy spell. Also, Alex Joseph Grayson (subbing for the newcomer Cole Thompson) was a wide-eyed, eminently gullible Jack, making a gorgeous thing out of the coming-of-age ballad "Giants in the Sky." The production's slightly helter-skelter look is nothing against the design team, who were hired for a two-weekend concert gig, not a major Broadway revival; within these limits, they get the job done. David Rockwell supplies a spare, leaf-free woods, along with an amusing tableau depicting, in miniature, the homes of Cinderella, the Baker, and Jack. Lighting designer Tyler Micoleau makes good use of sidelight, color treatments on the upstage cyc, and color-changing interior illumination of the upstage tree trunks. Andrea Hood's costume design has a couple of standout ideas, such as the Wolf's furry ensemble, amusingly completed by Cookie Jordan's wig design. More fully realized (of necessity) is the sound design of Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann, who provide admirably clear reinforcement along with such effects as the Giant's thundering footsteps. What's especially interesting, given this production's loose-limbed nature, is how confidently deBessonet guides the action from its lighthearted, almost mocking, opening into a second act marked by recrimination and loss, climaxing in the one-two emotional punch of "No One is Alone" and "Children Will Listen." Some productions of Into the Woods struggle with this transition but not here; rarely, if ever, has the final passage, with its undertone of rueful acceptance and tentative healing, been so moving. Or maybe it's the passage of time; the older one gets, the more meaningful Into the Woods becomes. People have famously read all sorts of things into Lapine's book, insisting that the havoc wrought by the Giant is a metaphor for AIDS or nuclear war. But, as this production makes clear, the show is really about the messy business of living -- the necessity of making choices whose consequences can't be calculated, the constant struggle between love and selfishness, and the all-too-human impulse to blame others when it all goes wrong. It's about doing your best today, failing, and starting over again tomorrow. It's one of the wittiest of modern musicals and one of the saddest. And in this production, it feels revelatory once again. --David Barbour 
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